


so never let go

by beneathyourbravery



Series: there is always only one truth [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Detective Conan Fusion, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Detectives, Friends to Lovers, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, mention of murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:47:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27593657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beneathyourbravery/pseuds/beneathyourbravery
Summary: Surprises lose the right to their name for people like Donghyuck, with hearts so calloused by ache and betrayal that they grow accustomed to changes in their path and navigate suspense like a pirate would a treasure map.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Series: there is always only one truth [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1999672
Comments: 18
Kudos: 80





	so never let go

**Author's Note:**

> is this me very, _very_ self-indulgently turning the detective conan mh au into a series? it most probably is.
> 
> this is a sequel to [keep me in suspense](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26268280), but i guess it could also work as a stand alone if you know the universe in which this fic takes place! and again, just like last time, you don't need to know anything about the detective conan universe in order to enjoy this fic _if you read keep me in suspense first_ ; but if you happen to do, i hope you'll enjoy the little details and trying to see who is who in this! 
> 
> this was inspired by the Desperate Revival arc, which, by the way, are the last few episodes i got to watch on TV when i was a child. 
> 
> title from [detective conan opening 7 - Mysterious Eyes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obnh9sITGa0&t=34s)

_If you saw it then go for it,_

_that different love that passed you by;_

_And you long for something you can't touch_

_True Heart for Mystery Eyes_

_—_ Garnet Crow _, Mysterious Eyes_

Spring always arrives, Donghyuck learnt at a very young age, even after the coldest of winters. 

This year, cherry blossom season comes around just like it has always done—bright and sweet, light scented relief from the struggles of a lonely winter that covered the city with thick blankets of snow. 

Still, to Donghyuck flowers bloom less pink this time, the beautiful sight dulled by the ache sitting tight around the bottom of his throat, threatening to swallow him whole and steal his soul away if he lets his guard down.

Everything has been a little like this, lately, and he fears it will only get worse. It’s not easy, in the end, learning to live without the one person that’s always been by your side—the hand he would always cling to in sudden urges of support, a shoulder to cry on during the bad days; sweet laughter echoing inside his ribcage after a bad joke, honey remedy for his heart. 

Renjun suddenly snaps his fingers in front of his face, and it takes Donghyuck out of the trip down the nine circles of Hell he’d been taking inside his brain. 

“Donghyuck, c’mon, wake up! Stop thinking about Mark, it’s almost time!” he chides, a pile of costumes held in one of his arms, his free hand pushing a clip-on microphone wrapped around a transmitter into Donghyuck’s chest.

Donghyuck’s reaction is, as always, automatic, but no less mastered because of it—in all the time he’s known Renjun by now, he’s heard these remarks often enough for the words to tumble out of his lips without his brain registering them first, self-preservation instincts kicking in at the sound of his name.

“I wasn’t thinking about Mark!” he whines, taking the microphone in his hand with an indigned huff, “don’t you have like, someone to help dress up or something? Or is your only job to come bother me?”

Objectively, Donghyuck knows there is plenty of work for Renjun to do—after all, the Seoul University _Annual Theatre Weekend_ is one of the most important events of the year in their college, and Renjun signed up as a volunteer to help the theatre club people with backstage duty, where everything is hectic right now. From where they stand, Donghyuck himself can recognise people he knows working hard as time ticks against them, nerves and excitement mixing up beautifully to create an atmosphere he knows can only be tasted in places where surprises are brewed. 

Across the room, Liu Yangyang—first year Electrical and Computer Engineering student, a good friend of theirs and Renjun’s usual hookup of choice when they’re drunk enough—is groaning and stressing over the sound board he’s in charge of tonight, the audio trials they ran in the morning apparently not enough to ensure the play would run smoothly today, and Dejun—a transfer student for the second part of the year that’s in training to become yet _another_ police detective just like his father Qian Kun—is playing around with the wires in hopes to fix everything in time. Behind them, Ten—Johnny Suh’s boyfriend, ace of his class in the Performing Arts Faculty, who tells them that Johnny couldn’t make it to the play tonight because he’s stuck home taking care of a very sick Yuta ( _“Oh, Minhyung is sick as well! There might be a virus going around their school or something.” “Get away from me then!” “Fuck you, Renjun.”_ )—is dusting makeup across Dong Sicheng’s cheeks, the hero of the play, one of the most important characters tonight; and Na Jaemin, one of Renjun and Donghyuck’s best friends, is taking pictures in his magician costume—probably so he can send them to Jeno, his best friend with whom he’s _definitely_ not in love with ( _“You are so in love with him Jaemin, it’s literally painful to see.” “What, like you and Mark?”_ )—, winking at them when he catches Donghyuck staring from afar.

Donghyuck reckons he could have signed up to help, too, because he surely would have enjoyed to see the one optative credit compensation all volunteers will receive for their effort, but his role for tonight is no less gratifying than the one his friends get to have by actively participating in the play.

Donghyuck has always dreamt of becoming a journalist. It is not a secret to anyone, but he just loves to remind everyone of it, so it is clear that he’s being brave enough to chase his dream despite the voices telling him it would be useless, _your father is a great detective, you should learn from him_. 

Ever since he was very, very little, Donghyuck would love to sit on his father’s lap while he read the newspapers, too young to know how to make out the stories the words printed in a small font were telling if Taeyong didn’t explain them to him, but smart enough to owlishly stare at the pictures displayed in black and white on the sandy paper; short, chubby fingers always pointing at the prettiest of them, _‘what happened here daddy?’_ , a curious mind that would one day end up driving him head first into the biggest enigma of his life—Mark Lee and his chapped lips and the moles on his neck, the ache to know what he tastes like, if he’d feel soft under his touch, if he will ever come back home.

They’re not that different from each other, in the end; Mark and Donghyuck, they both ache for the truth—finding out or telling about it, it’s just two sides of the very same coin. 

Sometimes, when Donghyuck closes his eyes alone in his bed at night, he wonders if they could ever be on the same one—together, hand in hand, heartache melting under the sweet relief of knowing yourself loved in return, the sweet, warm kiss of returning home.

Mark’s been gone for eight months now, but Donghyuck is still working hard for his dream, even if he’s lacking his biggest source of support by his side. He is going to become a _great_ journalist, good enough to write about Mark Lee’s incredible deductions one day, when he takes over Donghyuck’s own dad as Seoul’s most renowned private detective, when the whole country makes echo of his dauntless bravery and his sharp intellect. 

Yeah, Donghyuck is going to be the _best_ —and if interviewing the cast of the university’s theatre play tonight is just another step along the road towards his goal, he’ll do it with a wide smile on his lips, for working hard for success is something he’s always carried in his blood anyways.

Tonight, Donghyuck’s News Reporting class is in charge of interviewing the participants of the _Theatre Weekend_ as an exercise for their latest seminar, and through a random draw carried out by the theatre club integrants in which Jaemin _definitely_ did not intervene, he’s scored the chance to be the one not only to interview, but also to _reveal_ the identity of the mysterious hero of the play—namely Dong Sicheng. It’s not really that much of a secret for everyone actually involved in the weekend, but hey, the public does love to be kept in some sort of suspense, doesn’t it?

“You’re _always_ thinking about Mark, you’re just that obvious. Oh, wait, did you remember to tell your dad and Minhyung to come see the play?” Renjun asks, then, completely unphased by Donghyuck’s blatant pretense at being offended—he should probably be on stage acting and not making interviews, but hey, trips to stardom are often a choice, and Donghyuck rejected his this time round. “Jeno said he’d give the kids drinks for free if they came to visit, and I think his dad is somewhere in the crowd. Isn’t he great friends with yours too?”

Donghyuck merely hums as he nods, peeking outside the tightly drawn curtains of the stage to take a quick glance around the theatre, eyes searching for familiar faces across the not-so-big mass of people starting to flow into the building. Much to Donghyuck’s dismay—only because it means that Renjun was _right_ —he catches sight of his dad sitting next to Jeno’s; Kim Doyoung, head inspector of the Robbery Division of the Seoul Metropolitan Police, known to have a very good, collaborative relationship with private detective Lee Taeyong, the case of the phantom thief wrecking havoc across the city one that brought them to start working together really closely.

Donghyuck has seen Inspector Kim’s car parked in front of their building enough nights now to know that the tabloids might be lacking some essential information. Not that he wants them to get it—his father deserves happiness, after how much he’s had to put up with all his life. The world has not been the kindest to them.

“I think Jeno is gonna be too distracted by Jaemin in that suit he’s put on for his number to think about pouring drinks,” Donghyuck simply grins, “and I told you Minhyung has a mean cold! He shouldn’t be having any cold drinks in a while.” By now, after getting to practice for so long, he’s learnt by trial and error how to play the big brother role. As he speaks, he hopes for his voice not to reflect the internal struggle that it is to pretend that everything is fine when you know more than you probably should, too.

Living with a detective has taught Donghyuck many things over the years, some of which he should probably not have heard of while he still was a teenager growing up into the young adult he is now, but there is one he will never, _ever_ forget about: the truth is always hidden in plain sight—it might take more than two eyes and a quick mind to see it, deductive instinct the virtue of a few lucky ones, but more often than not, it’s the heart that finds out about it first.

Donghyuck has grown up seeing both his father and Mark Lee helping the police solve the most difficult cases day after day, and so he knows how important it is to keep track of the evidence—any trace of illicitly shaped secrets to which to cling in search of the truth, whispers and glances that tell more than a thousand words ever could. Donghyuck knows this, and so he makes a list on the Notes app in his phone, listens to a song and very self-indulgently titles it _The Truth Untold_ just because he can.

The facts go a little like this: Donghyuck learns about physics in a compulsory class in secondary school and promptly forgets about them by the time he enters high school, but this is the one thing stays: opposite poles attract each other, the theories calling electromagnetism one of the four basic forces in the universe, and not once does anyone talk about how love leads people to move mountains with bare hands searching for their north. Years later, Mark Lee leaves on an autumn night in September and never comes back, and Donghyuck learns yearning like a magnet learns metal—unstoppably, like a hungry wolf feasting on raw fresh meat, painful in its inevitability, the force of a hurricane wrecking a city in its wake.

The facts go like this: Mark Lee calls sometimes and says he will return one day, and Donghyuck clings to the words like he would to a rusted emergency stair tethering over the edge of a crumbling down building in the case of a great fire; as if his whole life depended on it, fuel for his tired soul when the cold arrives and leaves his bones trembling in their loneliness, mild remedy for the ache of a heart that knows itself longing for what could have been, words that were never said, gestures he wishes he would have turned into motion before.

The facts are like this: Mark Lee disappeared eight months ago, and Lee Minhyung too often does not act like the kid he is supposed to be.

Donghyuck knows there is the very tangible possibility that he is going sick with longing, that missing Mark has messed up his head enough for him to believe in the impossible, but still. 

Some nights, when his sock-clad footsteps are silent on the padded floor and Taeyong believes him to be either studying or asleep, Donghyuck catches sight of Minhyung reading novels that he should not even _know_ how to read, so absorbed in his thoughts that he does not even notice him staring behind the crack of his bedroom door.

And some days, when Minhyung asks for him to come with him to the park after a call with Mark—when he knows Donghyuck to be at his lowest, heart wrenched right out of his chest by a faceless voice that tells him there is hope—, he will sit on a bench and watch Minhyung play with his friends from school; and he will hear, because the wind carries words as if they didn’t possess the burden of changing lives, how Minhyung talks to Chenle, Jisung and Sungchan: as if he weren’t like them, a seven year old that knows too much for his own good.

And in certain moments, when life drags them into the cases Detective Lee Taeyong tries so hard to solve, Donghyuck doesn’t miss the way Minhyung’s eyes are quick around the area; how he always asks the right questions, gently pushes everyone’s eyes into the direction of the inevitable truth, detective instincts kicking in when they shouldn’t in a boy his age. 

And Donghyuck knows he could very well be going crazy, but if there is something he’s learnt in all his time on this Earth, this is it: that there is always one truth, and it can take any possible shape in the vastness of the universe, and the facts will always lead you to it if your eyes are clear enough.

Mark Lee disappeared the day before Lee Minhyung showed up in Johnny’s house and changed Donghyuck’s own life, and nothing happens by chance and they look so much alike that Donghyuck is still struck by it sometimes, after months of taking the kid into his house and taking care of him as if he were his own family _because that is what Mark would’ve done_ , so what if he is right and Minhyung is not Mark’s cousin but _Mark_ himself? Even Wong Yukhei when he comes to visit sometimes seems to know more than he lets on, and Donghyuck heard him slip up and call him _Markie_ once ( _“Ah, Donghyuck-ah, but they look so much alike, don’t you think?”_ Well, duh, _“yes I do,” “Grandma says it’s the eyes!”_ ), and—

Speak of the devil— _and he shall appear_ , Mark’s overly excited voice resonates in his head to complete the sentence in that way he absolutely loves, and Donghyuck fights to turn it off even if it’s just for tonight. 

For as smart as he is, Wong Yukhei does not seem to realise that he is both too tall and too beautiful to pass unnoticed among a crowd of people much shorter than him.

“Who is that? Why is he coming here?” Renjun asks, voice a little bit exalted when he sees Yukhei dodging costume racks and stressed out students to approach them. Donghyuck would like the ground to swallow him whole.

“He’s a friend of mine,” Donghyuck sighs, but his heart skips a beat at the small beacon of hope that Yukhei opens up with his presence; the knowledge that he could be bringing news about Mark, to whom he’s _supposedly_ helping with the case that’s got him stuck away from Donghyuck in a secret location he would love to burn down to ash. “He’s just another stupid detective, from Hong Kong. I really need to stop surrounding myself with them, don’t you think?”

“Hell no, he’s so fucking hot,” Renjun marvels, and Donghyuck almost smacks him for it.

“Donghyuck-ah!” Yukhei calls out when he finally reaches them, a wide smile tugging at the corners of his full lips, “hey! Man, your dad told me you’d be around here—come on, it’s been so long since we last saw each other, give me a hug!”

The thing with Wong Yukhei is that he’s a little bit too much of an overexcited puppy for Donghyuck sometimes. He also deals with far more things than anyone at his age should—but in the end, Donghyuck guesses they all do too. 

The detective life is just so demanding, and living surrounded by them has led Donghyuck to understand—in a way he does not think even they themselves do—the tiredness that comes with having to exist with duty hanging heavy over your head, the certainty that comes with knowing that you will never live at peace if you don’t find out the truth in the end; has led him to understand that the expectations you have of yourself are just a buildup from the ones the world has placed onto you, and how exhausting it is, to have to live for yourself and for others and leaving your own life aside, sometimes, for the sake of the greater good. 

Donghyuck has seen his father go entire nights without sleep going through folders upon folders of evidence, has seen him take a punch to the nose for speaking out the truth. He has seen Mark Lee chase people down busy roads, seen him be held at gunpoint, seen him slip through his fingertips for yet another case. He still wonders, sometimes, if it is all worth it at the end of the day.

Wong Yukhei is just another example of that passion turned responsibility turned into a lifestyle—he’s always going from one place to another, without ever losing his smile, carrying the weight of the truth heavy on his back and pretending not to need sleep when Taeyong offers him to stay the night at home in the late hours of dawn.

“You came to Seoul like two weeks ago,” Donghyuck replies with a fond roll of his eyes, but he pats Yukhei’s shoulder and it settles him enough, “it’s not been long enough for a _hug_.”

“Hi!” Renjun chimes from where he stands behind Donghyuck, “I’m Huang Renjun, it’s nice to meet you!”

“Wong Yukhei,” he grins, lopsided and all, the full charming package he pulls out so well sometimes, “and this is… hey, Kunhang! Where are you man?”

Donghyuck can’t help but stifle a laugh when Kunhang turns his head where he is kneeling next to a pile of costumes, guilty smile on his face, the rack from where he guesses they were hanging before laid onto the ground. He’s always been kind of a mess, but he complements Yukhei’s idiotic tendencies so well that Donghyuck cannot believe they haven’t even kissed _yet_ —not like he and Mark have, but it’s not like that’s something he should even be thinking _about_.

Renjun sighs and rushes to help, and it finally gives him and Yukhei enough room to properly talk to each other, anxiousness building up inside Donghyuck’s chest like a premonition of some sorts.

“What’s wrong? Why are you here? Did Inspector Moon call you or something?” Donghyuck asks in a hushed tone, eyes curious as he stares up at Yukhei with his heart hammering against his lungs. Then, panic already making home out of the invisible fist around his throat, his tone strained when he adds in a small voice, “is it about Mark?”

Yukhei outright laughs, and Donghyuck’s ears burn pink. The sound Yukhei gives as a reply to his questions is not as unsettling as it is mortifying.

“Do you ever stop thinking about him?” Yukhei teases, and Donghyuck’s right eye twitches out of sheer distress, “I’ve told you he’s out of the country like a hundred times now! He’s fine, he’ll come back as soon as possible, man. Trust me on this one.”

Donghyuck wishes he _could_ still trust him blindly, but there is something about his tone that leaves him feeling uneasy, echoes of a desperate truth resonating across his ribcage. The shadow of doubt is just too dark over his aching heart.

“Is there a case, then? Or did you just make the trip here from Hong Kong to take Kunhang out on a _date_?”

It is Yukhei’s turn to blush—soft pink tinting his cheekbones, the bashfulness he will never admit to feel when it comes down to this.

“Why would I take him out on a date?” he scoffs, pushing back his shoulders in an attempt to recompose himself, regain some sort of control over the conversation. “We’re just best friends,and since primary school at that! I just thought that since I was going to come help your dad with some things, it would be nice to bring him along. You got along with him fine last time, and—”

“Yukhei, relax,” Donghyuck laughs, shaking his head in utter fondness, “I’m glad you both came. Jeno’s at the cantine, you can go ask him for some drinks and tease him about his crush on Jaemin, and maybe we can do something together tonight? Or tomorrow?”

This, too, Donghyuck has learnt comes from sharing life changing experiences together one too many times—the familiar camaraderie, becoming close friends despite constantly changing distance and proximity, despite time zone differences and languages and ways to see life. Yukhei also misses Mark Lee—his closest friend, he would call him when he couldn’t hear—, and that too he’s got in common with Donghyuck.

Longing brings friendships together in bittersweet ways, but it doesn’t make them any less good for it.

“Yukhei!” Kunhang calls out with a wave of his hand, the costume rack already settled back into place and Renjun gone to keep working against the clock, “c’mon, dumbass, the play is about to start! Let’s go sit— Donghyuck, hey!”

Donghyuck smiles brightly and waves back at him. 

There will be time to talk later, but for now, he pats Yukhei’s back and tells him, voice teasing as he speaks,

“Go sit with your _date_ ,” the grunt he gets in return well-deserved, “Jaemin is doing some magic tricks first, I wouldn’t wanna miss it.”

With a heavy sigh, Yukhei agrees and leaves with Kunhang to sit with everyone.

 _It’s showtime_.

Jaemin is pulling pigeons out of a white hat when the masked hero approaches Donghyuck. 

He’s come down to stand off to the side of the stage, apart from where the crowd is sitting on rows of chairs they all helped to set up a couple days ahead of the start of the _Theatre Weekend_ , camera resting on the ground and microphone pushed into the pocket of his jacket as he awaits for Jaemin to finish his number so he can interview him for his seminar’s activity. He’s really talented, Donghyuck has always thought, and funny enough to draw loud bursts of laughter out of the people filling up the space—and kind and pretty enough to drive Jeno absolutely _crazy_ , but that’s a side topic he only dwells too much on when they’re all sharing drinks in some bar around campus—, his spectacle so interesting that it manages to distract Donghyuck from his surroundings for a while.

It is then that, seemingly coming out of the shadows behind his back, the hero silently walks up to him, light on his feet like the spring breeze, and Donghyuck almost leaps out of his skin with the surprise that is to feel his fingers tapping on his shoulder when he thought himself alone.

“Shit, Sicheng, you scared me!” he whines, a hand held to his chest where his heart is threatening to break through flesh and bone with its racing pace. Sicheng’s head is covered by a helmet-like black mask, the bottom half of his face obscured by the shadows casted over it, and his presence under the light coming from the theatre ceiling feels as ethereal as Donghyuck believes seeing a mirage would; both solid and fragile at the same time, straight out of an obscure dream, white undergarments tight around his frame and sky blue cape draped over his shoulders with the elegancy that is often only reserved to the mightiest kings. Theatre lighting is a science, that Donghyuck knows; Jaemin’s mastered use of it for his tricks should be enough of a proof of it. “You took forever to get ready, hyung, we _still_ have to film the interview before the play and we’re almost out of time! Let me get the camera ready—here, can you hold the mic for a second? And—no _, hyung,_ don’t take your helmet off yet! It’s going to be like a _reveal_ , you have to—”

Throughout his almost nineteen years of life, Donghyuck has been faced by so many heart-wrenching revelations that they stopped being surprising too long ago for him to remember. 

He recalls the first time he witnessed his father discovering the culprit of an homicide, how exciting it felt knowing that the person that takes care of you so sweetly carries in his bones the extraordinary ability to pull the truth out of bottomless dark pits, against endless obstacles thrown on his way, and forgets the whirlwind of cases that come after that one only because guilt is not his sin to have. 

He remembers being sixteen and seeing Mark Lee dropping an ice cream cone all over the front his shirt and realising he was in love with him, the moment fresh in his mind like the traces of an artist’s brush over blank canvas, heart skipping a beat at the memory today just like it did back then, but doesn’t keep track of all the times he’s wanted to press his lips to Mark’s simply because he fears his chest would burst if he were to do so, keeping a register of the saddest kind of heartbreak—the one that comes from knowing yourself next to that who is the only one there will ever be for you, and restraining your greedy hands from tainting a friendship that should never go beyond what it is.

Donghyuck remembers, as if the moment kept repeating itself every day, the night Mark disappeared. He remembers the anguish gripping tight at the column of his throat and leaving him breathless, chest burning from the lack of air he could not bring himself to take, fear crawling up his spine at the possibility of him being gone forever until Johnny intervened to soothe his nerves, and then makes a routine out of the ache that comes with learning to live apart from your other half. 

Donghyuck remembers, and doesn’t ever forget, the first time Mark called him; the warm hug for his soul that was to hear his voice telling him not to worry, promising to return, words untold that Donghyuck’s heart longs to hear but knows better than to ask for. He remembers, and then learns that the phone will ring at the moment he least expects it to, when he needs it the most, and surprise fades into the comfortable safety of knowing your hand held in the far distance by the one person you know will always be there for you.

Surprises lose the right to their name for people like Donghyuck, with hearts so calloused by ache and betrayal that they grow accustomed to changes in their path and navigate suspense like a pirate would a treasure map— _everybody lies, expect danger behind every corner you round, nothing is ever what it looks like_ ; but when the hero takes off his mask, against Donghyuck’s very frantic orders of waiting for the camera to be ready, Earth slips out of its orbit and inevitably crashes down into the Sun. 

Consumed by its fire, head ringing with white noise and chest burning with the force of the impact that signals the start of what they would call the _End of the World_ , the last thing Donghyuck sees before shock takes over his bones and steals his breath away isn't Dong Sicheng’s toothy smile and perfectly dolled up face.

It is Mark Lee’s starry eyes and sharp cheekbones dimpled with the curve of a knowing smile, nose scrunching up in delight as if to silently tell Donghyuck that destiny will always keep some things reserved just for them.

⋈

Improvising is a virtue that comes naturally to curious children that end up in trouble more often than not and grows well-watered in a profession like the detective one. 

Mark knows about this first hand, for he takes advantage of his innate talent at pretending to know everything to unmask guilty criminals in every case he helps the Seoul Police, Yukhei and Taeyong with, and then pulls out the outstanding, award-worthy act of being Lee Minhyung under his very best friend’s stare,as if there is nothing at stake when he sneaks past the basic boundaries of kid-like behaviour to ensure everyone will remain safe. This all, Mark knows; and yet when Donghyuck’s always pretty, always golden face cracks open and shows shock like a fresh wound, he feels frozen into place and not knowing what to do. 

Perhaps he should have planned it all a little bit better—what to say, how to react, noting down all the words he’s been keeping inside his chest for years aching to just pour out of his lips like water out of a broken fountain that now fall silent as both happiness and fear and relief wash over his bones with the force of the tide. 

In his defence, he will say that Johnny and Yuta did not offer so much help as they offered endless teasing for his giddy excitement at the prospect of being able to recover his normal appearance, but in all honestly, how can he be blamed, after spending eight months living inside a seven-year-old body pretending not to be his real self?

Planning it all probably felt even more surreal than the material reality in which they operate ever could, despite secret organizations and assassinations and body size-shrinking drugs. 

“Donghyuck suspects you.”

It was Yuta that raised the doubt first, one afternoon when it was just him and Johnny and Mark in the eldest’s apartment, tiny fingers reflexively playing with the wheel of his lighter, watching the flame tremble underneath his intense stare the only reminder of smoking cigarettes he gets to have now that he inhabits the body of a seven year old kid. 

Him as a whole is an enigma that Mark has not yet had the opportunity to decypher. He doesn’t even know if _Yuta_ is his real name or some sort of disguise he’s casted upon himself to shield himself from that past he claims to be haunted by, doesn’t talk about home nor a lover nor about many other things Mark wishes he would tell them about. 

All he knows, really, is that Yuta is— _used to be_ , his current child-like appearance reminds him, the only mirror Mark can look at himself into these days, where his voice has lost its tilt and his arms barely reach halfway up their bookshelf, crossed signals from another life—an engineer, and that he doesn’t believe in any deity but thanks God for placing Johnny Suh in one of the Mechanical Engineering workshops he attended last year. When it all happened, when Johnny called Mark on the verge of a heart attack to tell him there was _yet another adult turned kid in his studio_ , Yuta had just leveraged him with his stare and said, voice disinterested as he nursed on a pineapple juice carton, _“he was the only one I could come to for help, I have no other friends outside the organization. I had no idea they had done this to you too, Mark Lee_. _”_ And Johnny is way too nice, and having another person going through the same as Mark could turn out to be more help than trouble, and so he lets seven-year-old Yuta live with him and tells everyone he’s his sister’s son and takes away all his cigarettes because _kids do not smoke_.

Mark also knows Yuta worked for the organization that tried to kill him and ended up making him shrink back into a kid’s body with their newly developed drug. He knows only because this Yuta has told him, voice loud and proud and bitter and thirsty for revenge, about how it was him and his brother Shotaro that created the drug; how it was just them that knew it wasn’t as much poison as it was a weapon with consequences that went further from physical damage and molded reality to its taste; about how they shot his brother dead before his own eyes, the only person he loved in this world, and then tried to kill him with the very drugs they’d both created. 

And Mark might know nothing about Yuta’s feelings and Yuta’s old life, because he keeps himself hidden behind concrete walls and heavy metal doors that will not give under his futile attempts at tugging them open, but he knows this: he is a fugitive on the run from the people that have tried to kill them both, and as difficult to read him as it is, there is one thing he can pull clear out of the entangled wires inside Yuta’s ribcage. 

He will do anything to keep themselves safe until the very moment he can end those that took Shotaro away from him—and if Mark is involved in any kind of trouble, he will be there to help, the sound of a small beating heart inside his chest masked by a pretense of selfishness and disinterest, a connection between them no one else could ever try to understand.

“You think he does?” Mark mumbles, lifting his head from the book he’s got his nose pushed into, “I think I’ve been doing well enough.”

“You haven’t,” Yuta rolls his eyes, “he’s bound to start suspecting, he hasn’t seen Mark in _months_.”

Mark would have liked to throw a snarky retort to that, for he more than anyone, wishes he could return to his body and take away Donghyuck’s every worry, soothe away all his pains. But Yuta is always faster, always a beat ahead of Mark's thoughts. He’s suddenly standing in front of him, palm extended forward as if in an offering, and a single red pill laying on its center, a key to resurrection.

“It’s a prototype,” is what Yuta tells him, when Mark fears his jaw won’t ever close again, confusion and surprise a tight strain on his muscles, “I’m not sure if it will work, nor for how long—probably just a day, maybe? But it’s something. It could help him calm down. As long as you don’t tell him the truth, obviously. That would be a _stupid_ move.”

“What,” Mark manages to stutter seconds later, after Johnny’s dropped down his phone and picked it up with a cracked screen. 

Yuta smirks, then, and Mark discovers that he’s got a meticulously developed plan inside his brain, and he’s also got Johnny wrapped around his finger after pulling out of him all the protective instincts he’d often only reserved to Mark with his puppy eyes and his too-intelligently-placed whines—enough that when he starts telling them about it, everything makes perfect sense despite the unfathomable risk of it all. 

“I _guess_ we could make something like that,” Johnny hums, already drawing sketches of a damned _voice changing facemask_ on some scratch of paper he’s managed to pull out of his incredibly messy desk, “I made Mark’s bowtie, it shouldn’t be that different, right?”

“Dude, Donghyuck is not dumb! He’s going to realise!” Mark hissed, seconds away from tearing his hair away from his scalp. “You look _nothing_ like me, Yuta!”

“That’s what the glasses are for! We could design them so they make my eyes look more similar to yours! It’s possible, right, Johnny? I know you were in that Optical Systems course. And with the facemask and how surprised Donghyuck will be to see you—”

Sometimes, Mark wonders when it was that he started letting himself start to believe in things pulled straight out of fantasy books. When thinking about it, he’s always torn between the moment he turned into a kid and the moment he met Lee Donghyuck and realised there would never be another one like him in his life. 

Donghyuck raises his hand to hover in front of Mark’s face—his face still as marble as if there was not a heartbeat thrumming through his veins, the movement quick for a second and still for the next like some sort of lucid dream—, and Mark finds himself staring at it with so much intensity that he almost goes cross-eyed with it.

“Are you gonna hit me?” is what he ultimately asks, eyes finally darting up from Donghyuck’s hand to stare into his own after a breath waiting for motion, and it’s probably not his smartest move, for he sees an ocean of tears building up in them and threatening to drown him down with its tide. “Hyuck—“

“You fucking dumbass!” Donghyuck yells, then, suddenly bursting at the seams like an unleashed volcano, all the fire inside the Sun spilling like magma in the tears streaming down his face, in the cracks in his voice as he throws himself to hug Mark like an anchor finding shore, arms tight around his middle in the desperate grip of a royal knight around his mighty sword, “you’re a fucking idiot! Oh my God, I hate you so much, you’re so horrible! Why would you do this to me!”

The sound is drowned by the loud music blasting through the speakers as the crowd awaits for the theatre play to start, and so nobody can hear it when Mark’s heart breaks under the ache saturating Donghyuck’s words to the hilt, guilt eating away at his conscience just like it has been doing for months on end now; nobody can hear it when he buries his face in Donghyuck’s caramel hair, his arms around Donghyuck’s shoulders like a shield, the shadow that covers this side of the theatre ground with its blanket keeping them safe, and says, 

“I’m sorry,” the sound of an awful song, repetitive and yet so true, the only thing he can really say without keeping anything obscure from view, “Hyuckie, please, c’mon, don’t cry! I just wanted to give you a surprise, I thought you’d be happy to see me after a while!”

“You’re so stupid,” Donghyuck sniffles, and Mark longs to tear away the white undergarments from his skin just so he can feel Donghyuck’s tears against his flesh, take away all his pain and swallow it down until it means nothing and nothing at all.

“What the fuck, _Mark_?!”

Well. _Almost_ no one hears them. Wong Yukhei has a tendency to be where he’s least supposed to at the most inopportune times. 

Donghyuck bolts away from him like lightning, electricity still sparkling at his fingertips where he’d been holding onto Mark before, the tear tracks on his face the last traces of rain after a short-lived storm. Mark aches to reach over with his fingers to wipe away at his rounded cheeks, but then he remembers he’s still supposed to just be Donghyuck’s best friend and maybe best friends are not allowed to satiate each other’s thirst for comfort like this when nothing has been spoken about it yet.

“The hell you mean ‘ _what the fuck, Mark’_ , you fucking monster! You knew about this, didn’t you? Is that why you came? So you could laugh when I got a _fucking aneurysm_ at—”

Donghyuck’s words suddenly die on his tongue, fire extinguished by a shapeless water stream. When Mark follows his eyeline, he discovers the source of his astonishment in Yukhei’s hand wrapped tight around Minhyung’s.

“Mark hyung!” Minhyung— _Yuta_ —squeals, voice muffled by the facemask covering his nose and mouth to avoid the risk of infecting others with his _mean cold_ , his round glasses fogging up a little as he speaks. Donghyuck’s eyes desperately search for Mark’s as the kid runs to hug _his cousin_ , and when Mark picks him up and spins around, he hopes for the plan to have worked out fine enough.

“Put me down,” Yuta hisses in a whisper, and Mark laughs and places him back on the ground feeling too much like the protagonist of a sci-fi film.

“I had no idea about this!” Yukhei whines, staring at Mark and Minhyung as if he just could not believe his eyes, but his voice has recovered some of his usual relaxed subtone, “dude, what the hell, why didn’t you at least tell me you’d be coming! I thought we agreed you’d keep me updated on your case and all.”

“Oh, bu only _I_ knew about it,” Renjun sing-songs, peeking out from behind a curtain to wink at Donghyuck, the very embodiment of a devil that knows too much not to try to play matchmaker between his friends, “who do you think helped him get dressed like that, hm?”

“I’m going to kill you one day Huang Renjun, I swear to God I—”

“It was a surprise,” Mark smiles, and his eyes search for Donghyuck as he yearns to hold him close, “it’s just for a little time, I have to return soon, but. I’m staying until tomorrow.”

It’s just by habit that he knows to recognise the way happiness morphs Donghyuck’s serious, indigned face into something gentler, something he’s only ever shared with him. Yuta, unrecognisable in Minhyung’s disguise, moves to stand beside Donghyuck to make his point: _we are not the same, all your suffering will be quenched one day_. 

After allowing himself to breathe for a moment, Donghyuck finally smiles, lets out a soft chuckle that makes home out of the empty spaces in between Mark’s ribs and says,

“Let’s go sit outside, hm? The play is about to start.”

⋈

Waking up in his own body after so long could have only felt better for Mark if Donghyuck had been curled up in bed beside him and not threatening to burn down the bell on his front door from his very insistent ringing. 

“Mark Lee!” Donghyuck’s voice bounces off the walls on the hallway outside Mark’s flat and echoes across the living space, loud and irritated, “I know you’re there, you asshole! Open the door!”

It takes Mark a moment to live down the panic that bubbles up his throat at the sound of his name coming from Donghyuck’s lips. _It’s okay_ , he tries to tell himself as he gets out of bed, hair messy and glasses slightly sliding down his nose where he puts them on with a little less grace than he would’ve liked to, _he doesn’t know about it, he is safe, you are keeping him safe_. 

It should probably be easier, Mark thinks, regaining the body you’ve inhabited all your life after being forced to learn to act like a kid for the greater good of it all, yet when he looks down at his feet and sees his legs stretching out further than they have for months, he forgets how to walk for a second and almost ends up face down onto the floor. 

He probably shouldn’t bask so much in the delight of it all—finally returning to being Mark and not Minhyung, no primary school to attend and no adults to fool with his pretense, getting to talk to Donghyuck as his real self and not through some sickly created mask—, because Yuta said it would most likely only last for a day and he knows how easy it is to grow accustomed to good things, how badly it hurts to have them taken away after getting a sweet taste of it. 

He knows, because all his life he’d taken Donghyuck for granted—believed he’d always get to have him by his side, that there could maybe be a day where he could tell him how he would fly to the Moon just to bring her down to him, where he would get to confess that for as long as he can remember there has never been someone quite like him for Mark; believed that nothing could ever come in between them, until almost getting killed turned into him shrinking back into a child and the shadow of danger started flying like black crows over their heads. 

“Mark! Open the fucking door, c’mon!” Donghyuck’s voice grows more desperate with everys step towards the entrance Mark takes, and against his better judgement, it just makes him smile all the wider. 

It is bittersweet, missing and yearning for someone you live with, having to lie to keep him safe despite knowing you to be the one to cause all his pain; and so he’s decided he is going to make the most out of today, while he still can—the words that haven’t been said, touches stolen away from them.

“Yah, I’m coming! Stop yelling, you’re gonna wake the whole building,” Mark laughs, and when he opens the door and he’s met with a very pouty Donghyuck, all his walls crumble and he aches to hug him close to his chest. For some stupid reason, he doesn’t—knowing to wait for the right moment, it is a virtue, too, “what time is it?”

“Almost noon, c’mon! We’re going out for lunch with Renjun and Jeno and Jaemin, don’t tell me you _forgot_ ,” Donghyuck huffs, but when their eyes meet, Mark recognises the way Donghyuck surrenders—pliant like golden sand by the sea, softened by the caress of a wave; weak for Mark in a way that he still struggles to accept, that sits tight on the cave of his heart and aches, aches, aches. 

“Alright, alright, hyung, calm down! Let me get dressed in a second and—”

“The hell you mean _hyung_?” Donghyuck’s incredulous voice cuts through him like the sharpest of knives. Air gets stuck in Mark’s throat as he realises, eyes wide open as he shakes his head vehemently.

“Hyuck! I meant Hyuck! Oh my God,” Mark utters out an awkward laugh, that he hopes comes out more embarrassed than panicked, “I’ve been struggling with pronunciation so much these days, you know? Cause I’ve been talking in English mostly and—”

“And you wish I were your hyung, dumbass. I’d treat you so well,” Donghyuck giggles, teasing in his nature, and it turns down Mark’s every alarm—he is safe, _they_ are safe for now. “C’mon, go get dressed, you look a mess!”

It feels grossly domestic, Donghyuck sitting in his living room while Mark puts on some _adult clothes, finally_ , tapping away at his phone as he waits. Mark has been living with him as Minhyung for so long now, and yet it all feels so different; Donghyuck looking at him, and talking to him, after knowing how much he aches, how he yearns for him silently in the darkness of his room. 

Mark promised him once he would always keep him safe, and for that, he cannot tell him the truth—and it eats away at his sanity, having to lie to the person that trusts him the most, everything he pretends not to know gawking at his chest and leaving it marred with wounds he doesn’t know if he will ever get to heal. But if he can take away some part of his suffering, if there’s something in his hands to do and paint that smile that rivals the Sun in its brightness on Donghyuck’s face, it is telling him what he feels—letting him know that he’s loved, more than he could ever probably believe himself to be by someone like Mark, who runs away chasing criminals and disappears and calls him only when the skies are gray.

That he is loved, despite years of words falling silent and hands aching for a touch they should not get, too fearful of ruining a friendship that has probably always been destined to end like this—with them entangled together, hearts tied so close that every beat gets to make the other tremble to the core, a kismet-shaped thread wrapping them in its embrace and making life without the other sound unimaginable.

And that is what he is going to do today, while he’s still in his real body, closer than ever to the one fate chose to be his soulmate: telling Donghyuck about his true feelings, giving up the fight. Forgiveness is allowed, a little piece of Heaven on Earth. 

“Hyuck,” Mark calls from the bathroom, staring down at the sink because looking at himself in the mirror while he says this takes more courage than he will ever muster to have, “do you wanna go out for dinner tonight?”

“Huh?” Donghyuck responds from the living room, and Mark can picture the furrow in his eyebrows as he speaks, “but we’re already going out for lunch with the others, I don’t think they’ll wanna go out for dinner as well! We’re not all detectives getting paid, idiot.”

“I meant—” Mark hates the way his voice falters, clearing his throat and taking a deep breath before he makes a fool out of himself, “I meant just us. You and I, you know? It’s been a while since we last did something together alone.”

The flat falls silent for a second—enough for Mark to hear the rapid beating of his heart, strong against his ribs, threatening to break free and run away to lay itself bare before Donghyuck, _this is what I feel, this is who I am, take me, take me, take me_. 

He is about to add some stupid, tension-easing comment when Donghyuck giggles, the sound filling up the spaces between Mark’s bones like it’s home, sweet and safe and the only place he wants to live in forever.

“You’re such a _sap_ ,” Donghyuck laughs. “Yeah, that sounds fun! Take me somewhere nice, hm?”

⋈

What to expect when you’re expecting something but don’t know what, who, when, _if_?

Feeling lost around Mark is something that comes new to Donghyuck; a foreign state of mind that washes over his skin and leaves him feeling prickly, hands shaking and eyes alert, suspicious of every movement in his surroundings, worriedly hopeful in a place where he should feel calm because Mark is home and forever his safe place.

If there is something that Donghyuck knows better than to be around Mark Lee, it would be fearful, because as much as it aches, he knows Mark would take a bullet for him if it came down to that, would try to stop a train with his bare hands just to keep him safe. Donghyuck knows, because he too would do the same, would tear apart an armed band like he did to the kids who would bully Mark for having the _cutest_ lisp ever when speaking in Korean back in school—without any kind of hesitation, brave where he knows himself protecting the person he loves the most in the world.

It is strange, Donghyuck reckons, being so young yet knowing there will never be someone other than Mark Lee for him. There are probably prettier boys out there, boys ready to throw themselves to the ground Donghyuck steps on just for a taste of his lips, but for as far as he can remember, he knows he would never be able to look at anyone the way he looks at Mark; sure of his every feeling, basking in his presence like one does under the Sun on a summer day, delighted and unafraid of getting burnt because he knows he’ll protect him from any harm.

Still, Donghyuck feels lost, as strange a feeling as it is tonight, because Mark’s been sort of nervous all day, staring at him whenever Renjun would start telling anecdotes of the past few months as if there were nobody else in the world but them; blushing the prettiest shade of red when Jaemin had snorted at catching him staring at Donghyuck, knowing smirk on his lips; taking him out for dinner to the fanciest place Donghyuck has ever seen in his life, tucked-in shirt and careful dressing etiquette and everything, _‘I need to talk to you about something, Hyuckie’_ , thorn roses and butterflies growing wild inside Donghyuck’s belly on their way there as he turns the words round in his head and tries to dissect them in his quest to simply _understand_.

“Woah,” Donghyuck marvels, taking off his black dress jacket and hanging it off the chair before sitting down; Mark mirroring his action on the other side of the careful set-up table he’d booked right by one of the large windows adorning the restaurant’s walls, “this place is incredible, are you sure they pay you enough to treat me here?”

Mark laughs, perhaps a little too loud for the atmosphere that surrounds them, but his cheeks burn light pink and Donghyuck would love to drown himself in the sound so much that he doesn’t even tease him for it.

“Yeah, I promise you they do,” Mark grins, soft white shirt stretching nicely along his shoulders when he sits, dark brown hair carefully falling over his forehead as if he were the main character straight out of a romantic movie, “do you like it?”

“Of course I do,” Donghyuck smiles, threatening to choke on the fondness that climbs up his spine, eyes closing into crescent moons as he takes in just how pretty Mark’s starry eyes look when he stares back at him. “Thank you for taking me here. I’ve missed doing stuff with you so much, you know.”

The flash of hurt that washes over Mark’s face only lasts for a second—almost imperceivable, if only Donghyuck weren’t so used to stare at him, if only he didn’t know him better than the palm of his very own hand. 

He goes to apologise, because nobody knows better than Donghyuck how difficult it is to make yourself a name in Mark’s profession, especially so young, despite endless talent and undeniable courage, but Mark chuckles softly and interrupts him with a shake of his head.

“I’m sorry,” Mark says, soft and sincere, the one thing Donghyuck will never doubt from him, “I promise you I’m trying to solve this issue as fast as possible, okay? I’ll come back home soon. I feel like this is all I’ve ever told you lately, but really, it’s the truth.”

“I know,” Donghyuck soothes him, unable to stop his hand from reaching over across the table to hold Mark’s and give it a light, short-lived squeeze, “it’s alright. I’ll still be here when you finish with your stupid case, dumbass, okay? So don’t apologise. I’m so proud of you, really.”

Mark laughs and so Donghyuck does too, trying his best to ignore the way his hand feels tingly where his skin had met Mark’s mere seconds ago.

“Hey,” Mark calls out to him, then, eyes wide in curiosity as he speaks, “how’s your dad been? I’ve heard from Yukhei that Inspector Moon’s been dealing with quite a lot of cases lately… Is he holding up well?”

Donghyuck’s cheeks almost hurt from how much Mark’s already made him smile tonight; so sweet, so caring, his place in Donghyuck’s life so central he knows he would crumble if he were to leave one day. 

“Inspector Moon is just _this_ close to having a heart attack one day,” he answers him with a soft laugh, fingers of his right hand held closely together in front of his face as he gestures the small amount of patience the head inspector of the Homicides Department has got left by now. “Poor Taeil, really. My dad’s been helping him and Inspector Kim— _you know_ , Doyoung, Jeno’s dad!—out a lot, but thankfully the Police detectives make quite a good team, too. Things are working out nicely enough, even without you here, Detective Lee,” Donghyuck teases, and Mark scoffs at his remark.

“With the detectives team do you mean Detective Jung? Like, Jung Jaehyun, the one who’s always with Inspector Moon?” Mark asks, fingers tapping against the menu as he listens to Donghyuck speak.

“Yeah, but there’s a new detective in their team—his name’s Jungwoo, Kim Jungwoo. He’s really smart! And also, Renjun and I think Detective Jung likes him. He’s quite obvious, you know.”

Mark hums, eyebrows raised as he sets down the menu to stare across the table and right into Donghyuck’s eyes, and Donghyuck feels too much like he’s being stared through, transparent as clear water under the spring breeze. “It’s bound to happen sometimes, isn’t it? Spending so many hours together just _has_ to make love blossom, even if it’s out of routine.”

Donghyuck looks down at his own menu for a second, the slightest hint of a blush starting to creep up his cheekbones, a soft hum his only reply to Mark’s words. 

Love can be born out of routine, of time spent together, of comfort found in the arms of the few that can understand your own struggles. It can also be born out of red strings of fate and entangled lives, growing up together on the playground and learning life one step at a time, _here is where I fell for you, and here, and here_ , a path told in moments and not steps, Donghyuck not believing himself able to tell apart a moment when he loved Mark and when he didn’t, his love for him seeping into his bloodstream so long ago that it’s already flooded every crevice of his body and now just longs, yearns, wants.

He’s about to ask him why they’re here tonight, fancy shirts and jackets and dress pants where they could be in their pyjamas eating takeout on Mark’s couch, when the waiter approaches their table and asks them what they’ll have to eat, if they would like anything to drink.

It’s not until he’s left, and then returned with their food and a bottle of white wine and then left again, that Donghyuck dares to speak, liquid courage sliding down his throat before he places his glass down.

“Hey, Markie,” he starts, voice soft yet cautious, “what did you want to talk to me about?”

Mark’s hands halt their motion where they were reaching to place down his own glass, and for a second Donghyuck is scared that he’s going to spill everything on the expensive tablecloth and have them make a fuss in the middle of this restaurant. “Huh?” he asks, trying to play dumb and failing espectacularly at doing so, “oh! Oh, yeah,” the laugh he lets out sounds forced, and Donghyuck raises his eyebrows expectantly, “it’s just. Uhm. I wanted to tell you something.”

“Yeah, that’s what you said,” Donghyuck huffs, rolling his eyes as he reaches over to gently tap Mark’s shin with the tip of his shoe under the table, “c’mon, what is it? Is it about work? Uni? A _girlfriend_?”

It is only because Mark chokes on air that Donghyuck knows the last possibility not to be the correct one. _Good_ , he thinks smugly, as selfish as it may be. There are some things in life he wants reserved just for him. “So?” Donghyuck pushes, weight resting on his elbows as he leans across the table just for the sake of intimidating Mark out of his stupor, “what is it? C’mon, tell me!”

 _Is it that you love me?_ , Donghyuck doesn’t say, for the words would be too majestic to take back, too sincere to pass as a joke. _Is it that you love me?_ , he does think to himself, keeps the question reverberating inside his chest, threatening to tear him apart, send him down into flames. The affairs of the heart, those are some he’s always struggled to understand.

“It’s,” Mark tries to start again, cheeks burning, feet bouncing against the ground as he stares at his food as if he could hide himself underneath his steak of Korean beef. 

Donghyuck’s heart leaps into his throat, anxiety biting down the walls inside his chest, “It’s…?”

“Shit, is that a piano?” Mark suddenly gasps, surprise tilting his voice into the most adorable pitch, and Donghyuck fights the urge to cover his mouth with his hand and scream into it out of utter desperation only because they are very much in public and it would probably get them kicked out of the place. “Hyuck! Come here, let me play a song for you, it’s—”

“What?” Donghyuck laughs, and it sounds a little bit manic with the nerves wrecking havoc inside his veins, “Mark, the food is going to get cold, can’t you just tell me and then—”

“No, please, c’mon, let me play this song!” He’s already standing up and tugging Donghyuck out of his chair, eyes set on the piano sitting on the far corner of the room. Donghyuck is already picturing how they’re going to be walked out to the street by security when Mark speaks again, much softer, much calmer this time, “I’ve learnt it recently, and, you know. It’s the song my dad played for my mom when he proposed to her like, God knows how long ago.”

The theories call electromagnetism one of the four basic forces in the universe, but not once do they mention the power certain words carry within their shapeless form; how they can make Earth tilt on its axis with their gentle vibration, unwrap dark veils from around pained hearts and leave the truth bare in plain sight, open to just take, embrace, keep for yourself.

Mark chuckles softly, eyes away from Donghyuck as he sits down on the seat, and Donghyuck’s ears burn pink, blush extending from his face down the collar of his shirt and bleeding into his chest like liquid fire at the implications, _what if, what if, what if_. 

“And you wanna play it for me?” his voice is small when he asks, fragile like glass, fingers shaking as he grips them with his other hand.

But Mark doesn’t say anything. He just smiles at Donghyuck, real as a day, as his fingers start pressing down the keys to flood the room with their beautiful melody. 

And Donghyuck simply stands there, as if frozen into place, while Mark creates the music that soothes over the worries in his bones and the ache in his heart; notes that tell him the stories his words struggle to, that carry with them the longing of a heart that knows itself taken, and yet.

Donghyuck wants to hear it—wants to feel it, Mark’s lips on his, his hands on his skin, listen to his voice make the shape of his name and tell him that it’s true, that this is real, that they are not living in a dream; that he _does_ feel what his wordless song tells him, that he wants a life spent by Donghyuck’s side just like his father had wanted out of his mother when he’d played the same melody to her back then.

Mark’s fingers falter on the keys, then, the awful noise of a badly written song pulling Donghyuck out of his haze. When he comes to his senses, Mark’s hand is clutching at his chest, a pained expression on his face, cold sweat beading up on his hairline and threatening to spill down his face in rivers of ache.

“Markie?” Donghyuck gasps, muscles contracting in shock before he manages to fight through it and rush to kneel by his side. “Mark, Mark, hey, are you okay? Do you need a doctor?”

“No, no, I’m okay,” Mark wheezes, voice catching in his throat, and when Donghyuck looks up at his face he catches sight of tears welling up in his eyes, “it’s fine, it’s been happening lately, I’m—”

“I’m calling you a doctor,” Donghyuck says, decision set on stone as he pulls out his phone, eyes wild as he stares at the screen, “shit, Mark, you’re so pale, sit down, I—”

The loud ringing of Mark’s phone breaks through the air, its vibration incessant inside his pocket when Mark reaches for it, fingers trembling around the device as he brings it up to his ear.

“Fuck,” is the only thing Mark says, desperate eyes searching Donghyuck’s scared own as he stands up on shaky feet, “Hyuck, listen, I’m so sorry, I’m so fucking sorry, I have to go—”

“You’re not going _anywhere_ ,” Donghyuck almost growls, and the fist around his throat tightens incredibly, almost enough to break down his voice, “Mark, _Mark_ , sit down right now!”

“I can’t, Hyuckie, I’m so sorry, Yukhei said there’s been a huge problem, I can’t stay,” Mark shakes his head, tears threatening to spill and wash everything away like a tsunami, brutal with their force—all the while he’s already slipping away from Donghyuck’s fingertips, “I can’t put you in danger, I could never forgive myself if something happened to you, you know… you know it all, Donghyuck.”

“Mark,” Donghyuck calls out weakly, his feet stuck to the ground as Mark rushes towards the door; “Mark,” like a broken record, watching him disappear behind a corner; “Mark,” alone once again, people looking at him in various states of pity as he walks back to the one which was supposed to be their table and sits down in front a cold plate of meat, tears falling from his eyes as he stares down at his lap, the never-ending story of the boy who never gets what he’s destined to have.

Minhyung finds Donghyuck like this: heartbroken tears erasing happiness from his golden face, honey eyes clouded by frustration and ache, confusion taking over his muscles as he types away angrily at Renjun’s message conversation on his phone.

“Hyung?” Minhyung calls out carefully, a sad pull on his lips making him look way more miserable than any kid deserves to be, “Cousin Mark called Uncle Taeyong and said to come pick you up, and that he’d left everything paid for! And he… are you okay?”

Donghyuck’s eyes miss the way Minhyung’s are red-rimmed as well, heart screaming inside his ribcage at having the most important moment of his entire life taken away from him like this—so unexpectedly, so unfair.

They miss the way Minhyung has to grip his wrist with his other hand behind his back to steady himself as he says, as serious as a seven year old can sound, heart bleeding out of his pores with white hot pain as he makes up yet another lie, one he wishes he could take back just to stitch the hollow it leaves with his own flesh, “Cousin Mark also said that I shouldn’t let you be sad… and that he will return and finish the song he was playing for you? I didn’t know he played piano, but hyung, isn’t that cool?”

But when Donghyuck turns his gaze towards him, Minhyung’s smile is there as always to lighten up his days, to remind him that he’s stronger than he thinks, that there will always be a reason to wake up in the morning.

“Cousin Mark is such a dumbass,” Donghyuck huffs, using his napkin to dab away at the tear tracks on his cheeks, “I hope that idiot is keeping himself safe at least.”

And Mark doesn’t know if his message came through, if Donghyuck understood what he tried to tell him through his song, what he would have liked to tell him with a kiss to his red bitten lips.

But when Donghyuck picks Minhyung up and settles him on his lap, arms around him in a hug Mark aches to return as his real self, he realises that maybe it wasn’t all lost, that maybe he managed to heal a little bit of Donghyuck’s marred heart.

“He said he will always come back to you, hyung,” Minhyung says, voice small as his gaze gets lost in the empty space in between his feet, longing for something he cannot touch.

“Let’s order the sweetest dessert of them all, okay?” Donghyuck coos, eyes already raking through the menu. “We deserve a good treat tonight.”

They both do. Aching hearts and curious eyes—they’re always doomed to find each other, in every possible lifetime, over and over and over again.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! please leave kudos and/or comment if you enjoyed this story, and you can find me on [twt](https://twitter.com/hanniecuqui) and [cc](https://curiouscat.me/peekatom) <3.


End file.
